Essay

Essay

Independence from Britain was more than just a severing of ties between the United States and its former mother country. It created the chance for the United States to establish its presence in the community of nations. Thus the American Revolution not only created the United States; it was the catalyst for the invention of American diplomacy.

Glossary Term – Event

Jay’s Treaty went in to effect. It resolved disputes between the US and Great Britain concerning the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Negotiated by John Jay, the treaty strengthened ties between the two countries but was widely unpopular because of the concessions made to Great Britain.

Glossary Term – Organization

During the creation of the new United States government in 1787, Federalists supported the adoption of the new Constitution. Federalists included Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison—the writers of the Federalist Papers. In 1791, Hamilton and other Federalists established the Federalist Party, which supported strong central government and a loose interpretation of the Constitution.

Glossary Term – Organization

The Federalist Party evolved from the core of Federalists, like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, who wrote and defended the US Constitution in 1787–1788. The new political party advocated a strong central government and supported a liberal construction of the Constitution. John Adams, elected in 1796, served as the only Federalist Party president, and the party held little power after 1801.

Glossary Term – Person

John Jay (1745–1829) was a member of the Continental Congress (1774–1776, 1778–1779). He also served as that body’s president (1778–1779). He went on to hold a variety of diplomatic roles, and was one of the negotiators and signers of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. From 1784 to 1789, Jay was secretary of foreign affairs. He was also author, with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, of The Federalist (1788), a landmark collection of essays promoting the US Constitution. In 1789, Jay accepted Washington’s...

Teaching Resource

This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance. Through a step-by-step process, students will acquire the skills to analyze any primary or secondary source material.

Lesson 1
Objective

Today students will participate as members of a critical thinking group and “read like a detective” in order to analyze the...